As one of the longest serving Finance Ministers, he introduced such initiatives such as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the Building Canada Plan and cut the GST. He also took a leadership role in G7 and G20 leaders gatherings and showed smarts at the beginning of the financial meltdown of 2008. He was respected at home and abroad whether one agreed with him or not.

Thursday afternoon, along with the rest of Canada, I learned that recently retired Finance Minister Jim Flaherty died suddenly, of an apparent heart attack. While Flaherty and I did not share many things in common, we did share this one challenge: I live with lupus, which is also an autoimmune disease. I have had to take prednisone in the past as part of my own treatment. I know the havoc it can wreak on one's system. That Flaherty had been able to carry on in such a busy, high-level and demanding job, while living with active bullous pemphigoid is, quite frankly, amazing.